Beef Pot Pies

I really love a good pie. Like a nice English style pie. So, I decided to make a yummy traditional beef pot pie. Beef isn’t available in Mumbai, and so I’ve used water buffalo meat, but it works as a great substitute.

The pastry I’ve used for the pies is the same as the one in my savoury pie post so you can get that recipe here. If you don’t feel like actually making the pastry, store-bought frozen puff pastry works just fine.

I’ve made small pies in ramekins rather that one big pie, so I’ve cut the vegetables into small cubes so that it all fits in the ramekins. I’ve also used mince beef rather than pieces for the same reason.

For the pies:

Garlic

Onion

Beef mince

Tomato paste

Mushroom

Potato

Peas

Carrots

Parsley

Worcestershire sauce

Beef stock

Puff pastry

In a saucepan sweat some onions and garlic until soft. Add the mushroom and sauté some more.

Once the mushroom has released some of its moisture, add the tomato paste. Next, add the minced meat to the pan. Allow the meat to brown a little bit and add the potato, peas and carrot.

Add some of the stock to the pot and stir. I lid the pan so that the peas and carrot get a chance to cook through. If you feel like the meat’s drying up, and some more stock. Just remember that in the end, you need to let the liquid evaporate as much as possible, so don’t add too much of it.

When the gravy has thickened some and reduced substantially, add Worcestershire sauce and some chopped parsley. I would recommend doing a taste test at this time, to see what’s missing. The Worcestershire sauce gives a bit of a tang so you might want to balance it out based on your palate. If it needs salt, you might want to add some now, but remember that the flavour will intensify since you want to let it reduce some more.

Once the gravy is right, and the potato cooked. Spoon some meat and vegetables into the ramekins. Allow the filling to cool a little and set aside.

In the meantime roll out the puff pastry and using a circle cutter, cover each of the ramekins. You may want to use a design cutter and decorate the tops. I tried doing that, but failed miserably so if you do succeed, yay you!

In a bowl whisk an egg and some cold water, and using a pastry brush, apply a layer onto the pastry.

Bake the pies for about 15 minutes, or until the pastry is a beautiful golden brown.